Final Exam

Question 1: Brands perform a critical strategic role by providing a key means for differentiating one company's offering from those of competitive brands. Discuss

A Brand is critical in the effect it has on consumers as of differentiating the company’s offerings from competition. This differentiation is the key element that pushes the consumer to “make the buy” and try the brand in the first place before reaching the final stage of “brand loyalty” where the same brand is at the top of consumers’ minds. The brand must first give the potential consumers distinctive reasons and special features to purchase these offerings. The uniqueness of the brand is a vital element to make people prefer it or at least opt for it when facing choice on the shelves offerings; knowing that what is present on supermarket and other sale surfaces is simply the competition. So, the Brand must spend energy and money (acceptable budget) in developing the perfect strategy that give the key features differentiating the brand from all others in the market.

Question 2: List as many strengths and weaknesses as you can for each of these traditional advertising media:

Newspaper Advertising:

Advantages:

• Mass audience coverage





• Flexibility: Match specific buying preferences and peculiarities of localized markets.





• The ability to use detailed copy: Detailed product information and extensive editorial passages





• Timeliness: the time between placing the ad and having it run permit advertisers to tie in advertising copy with local market developments or newsworthy events.

Disadvantages:

• Clutter: Large number of ads (it does not receive the readers’ attention)





• Not highly selective medium





• Occasional users pay higher prices than heavy users.





• Mediocre reproduction quality





• Buying difficulty





• Changing composition of newspaper readers





• Premium prices if there is a choice of a specific location/page in the newspaper

Magazine Advertising:

Advantages:

• Large reach of audience





• Selectivity





• Long life





• High reproduction quality





• Ability to present detailed information





• Ability to convey information authoritatively





• High involvement potential

Disadvantages:

• Not intrusive





• Long lead times





• Clutter





• Limited geographic options





• Variability of circulation patterns by market

Radio Advertising:

Advantages:

• Can reach segmented target audience more effectively especially in rural areas





• Intimacy





• Economy





• Short lead times





• Transfer of imagery from TV





• Use of local personalities

Disadvantages:

• Clutter





• No visuals





• Audience fractionalization





• Buying difficulties

Television Advertising:

Advantages:

• High reach of audience





• Visual messages can help transmitting the Marcom messages more easily (Demonstration ability)





• Intrusion values





• Ability to generate excitement





• One-on-one reach





• Ability to use humor





• Effective with sales force and trade





• Ability to achieve impact

Disadvantages:

• High price (Rapidly escalating cost)





• Zipping and Zapping





• Clutter





• High competitive commercials





• Need of high technology to get attention





• Audience fractionalization*

Question 3: Describe the Brand Awareness Pyramid?

The “Brand Awareness Pyramid” reflects the four stages that show the basic dimensions of brand equity. These levels are Unaware of Brand, Brand Recognition, Brand Recall, and Top of Mind.

• Unaware of Brand: The consumer does not know about the existence of the brand. So, advertising and promotion tools must be put into practice in order to move to next level in the pyramid.





• Brand Recognition: it reflects a superficial level of awareness





• Brand Recall: Indicates a deeper form of awareness compared to the recognition stage. Consumers can easily remember the brand if hints/cues are provided. Marketers seek to reach this stage with effective and harsh Marcom efforts.





• Top of Mind: This stage exists when a specific company’s brand is the first one that consumers recall when thinking about brands in particular product category.
  In general, The Marcom efforts are always seeking to move the consumer from the stage of unaware about the brand to at least the brand recall stage and of course, to the perfect scenario of Top of mind brand.

Question 4: Describe in detail the five key functions of IMC.

Integrated Marketing Communication depends on five key features that helps in understanding the philosophy behind the concept of IMC; and the feutures help, also, putting the idea into practice. These features are:

• Start with the customer or prospect: the customer represents the starting point for all marketing communications activities; instead of using the “inside-out” approach (from the company to customer), managers should start the other way. In other ways, the best approach is “outside-in” that puts the consumer in the first place; from that point, Marcom professionals determine the communication methods that best serve the customer needs in order to push them to buy the brand.





• Use any form of relevant contact or touch point: Managers should use various marketing communication tools to be able to reach the consumer. This element is an extension to the first one as after knowing what consumers want, we need to reach them with these communication tools such as advertising, sales promotions, sponsorships, personal selling, publicity and others. In addition, we mean by touch points and contact any message medium capable of reaching target customers and presenting the brand as it should be presented. This feature will help without any doubt the company to reach synergy.





• Speak with a single voice: Multiple messages in marketing communications and its tools must contain the same messages and speak one voice. Since we said to use any form of relevant contact (marketing communication tools); we need now to make sure that advertisements, point of purchase signage, sales promotions, sponsorships and all other Marcom tools are presenting the same message to the target audience. In other words, managers should coordinate messages and media to achieve a strong and unified brand image and push consumers to action. This single voice principle can be reached by selecting a positioning statement makes clear to everybody what a brand is intended to stand for in its target market’s mind and this idea/statement is transmitted through channels of communication.





• Build relationships: This feature emphasize on building a relationship or a link between brands and consumers. A good relationship between customers and the brand leads to repeating purchases and loyalty toward the brand.





• Affect Behavior: it is the ultimate objective and the goal of the whole IMC planning. IMC objective is more than influence brand awareness or enhance customer attitude; but it is more than that as successful IMC plans are directed to encouraging some form of behavioral response. In other words, it is move people to action.

Question 5: Explain how we measure consumer characteristics?

There four sets of characteristics that singularly or combined influences what people consume and how they respond to marketing communications. These are: Behavior graphics, Psychographics, Demographics, and Geodemographics. In other words, managers choose their target market and choose between these characteristics to get the perfect strategy that can influence their behavior. For example, the demographics characteristic is concerned with: the age structure of the population, the changing household composition, and the ethnic population developments. So, managers focus for instance on the characteristic of age to target a specific group of consumers.

Question 6: Name two prime objectives concerning ‘positioning’ of a brand.

The two prime objectives concerning positioning are:
Ø Build a strong brand image with all associations the company wants to project in the minds of customers. For example, the positioning statement of “Gain Time, Relax, and Loose Weight” used to promote the product “Power Plate”; the message will convey all the product advantages to consumers in one sentence and this will make it memorable. In addition, the statement will have the following associations just by thinking about the positioning statement:

Vibrations: Funny

Fitness: Healthy

Speed: Quicker results

Ø With a positioning strategy put into simple and attracting messages in the positioning statement we can reach the goal of speaking with one voice and unified message that we want to project to customers.

Question 7: Describe an example of using a ‘symbolic benefits’ strategy in order to position a product or service.

Symbolic benefits associate the brand ownership with a desired group, role, or self-image. It is a kind of appeal directed to customers’ desire for self-enhancement, group membership, affiliation and other abstract needs. For example, let’s analyze the following ad:

The price of this wine is high compared to most wines existing in the Moroccan market place; but from the first sight, a person loving wine and wanting to belong to a specific group of people especially classy wine tasters will feel the need to at least try the product and at the same time relate to the ad as being “A Good Wine Shopper”. This feeling will be more and more appealing because of the existence of the “French wines experience” in the ad knowing that it is well recognized as being among the best wines in the world. So, the purchase will be done regardless the price of the product.

Question 8: What is psychographic targeting? Describe an example of utilization of psychographic knowledge in marketing communications.

Psychographic targeting refers to the information about consumers’ attitudes, values, motivations, and lifestyles as they relate to buying behavior in a particular product category. There a well established and very known psychographic use/segmentation scheme that is SRI Consulting Intelligence’s VALS System shown in the following figure:

Innovators: People with high self esteem. They are receptive for the idea of innovation and change. As being sophisticated and successful, they tend to take charge people and like to be the leaders. They are always looking for new challenges.

Thinkers: defined as mature, comfortable and satisfied with their lives with a big sense of responsibility. They are Funs of decision making process and look for knowledge. They value order and are well educated.

Achievers: they are the leaders of the nation who make things happen. They like the sensation of achievement. They have loyalty to family and to their career. They are politically conservative. They are considered to be brand conscious, pragmatic.

Experiencers: enthusiastic and considered impulsive consumers. They are for variety and are risky. They are seen to be impatient, impulsive, spontaneous, and creative.

Believers: motivated by ideals. Conventional people based on tradition. They like routine and focus a lot on home, family, community, and religion. They are considered dependable, traditional, consistent, and respectful.

Strivers: motivated by achievement and concerned a lot about others opinions and approval to what they do. Money is their way to success and to satisfy their needs. They are lacking skills that could give them a good career instead of a simple job. They are considered as image conscious, trendy, and approval seeking.

Makers: motivated by self expression and tend to want to experience the world around them. They have good skills. They are interested in family, work and a little care about outliers. They are self sufficient, practical.

Survivors: focused lives with few resources. They often think that the world is moving fast and they are preoccupied with safety and security. They are also focused on satisfying their basic needs and have no motivation. The survivors are generally disadvantaged, depressed, and nostalgic as they do not have enough resources and lack of innovative ideas to move forward.

Question 9: What is ‘CPM’? Describe its principles and how it differs from ‘HEM’.

The CPM is a rational consumer processing model. CPM is the perspective that provides an appropriate description of consumer behaviour when that behaviour is deliberate, thoughtful, or highly cognitive. It views consumers as pursuing objectives such as “obtaining the best buy”, “getting the most for their money”, and “maximizing utility”. The CPM perspective is based on the thoughtful evaluation that the chosen alternative will be more functional and provide better results than will the alternatives.
In the other hand the HEM model explains how consumers process information when they are carefree and happy and confronted with positive outcomes. It recognizes that people often consume products for the sheer fun of it or in the pursuit of amusement, fantasies, or sensory stimulation. The consumption results from the anticipation of having fun, fulfilling fantasies, or having pleasurable feelings. From this perspective, products are viewed not as objective entities but more than that, as subjective symbols that precipitate feelings and promise fun and possible realization of fantasies.



Question 10: Define brand equity.

Brand equity can be defined using two different perspectives: A firm-Based perspective or Customer based perspective.
Firm-Based Perspective: it focuses on outcomes extending from efforts to enhance a brand’s value to its various stakeholders. As the value or equity of a brand increases, various positive outcomes result which are: Higher market share, increasing brand loyalty, being able to charge premium prices, and earning a revenue premium[1].

Customer-Based Perspective: a brand posses equity to the extent that customers/consumers are familiar with the brand and have stored in their memory warehouses favorable, strong and unique brand associations. It has two forms of brand related knowledge: Brand Awareness and Brand Image.

[1] Revenue premium : it is defined as the revenue differential between a branded item and a corresponding private labeled item.

Assignment

Question 1: Of what a brand image consist?
A Brand image is one of the dimensions of consumer based brand knowledge. It is the types of associations that come to the consumers’ mind when contemplating a particular brand.
These associations are thoughts and feelings that a consumer has about a brand.


Question 2: Identify two types of associations that a brand has.
The two types of associations are:
Ø Attributes
Ø Benefits


Question 3: what does a brand attributes include?
It includes:
Ø Non-Product related.
Ø Product related like.


Question 4: Identify two Non-Product related attributes.
Ø Price
Ø Packaging


Question 5: what does brand attributes mean?
A brand attributes mean the overall favourable evaluation or attitude toward the brand. In other words, it is what the brand worth in the mind of consumer concerning verything from the packaging to the colour or the size of products.


Question 6: “The successful positioning requires a communication strategy that entices a single type of consumer need (functional, symbolic or experiential)”
The statement is true. A brand that gives a generic image is difficult to manage.


Question 7: what does the consumer processing model mean (CPM)?
It is a rational consumer processing model. CPM is the perspective that provides an appropriate description of consumer behaviour when that behaviour is deliberate, thoughtful, or highly cognitive. It views consumers as pursuing objectives such as “obtaining the best buy”, “getting the most for their money”, and “maximizing utility”. The CPM perspective is based on the thoughtful evaluation that the chosen alternative will be more functional and provide better results than will the alternatives.


Question 8: what does the Hedonic, Experimental model (HEM) mean?
This model explains how consumers process information when they are carefree and happy and confronted with positive outcomes. It recognizes that people often consume products for the sheer fun of it or in the pursuit of amusement, fantasies, or sensory stimulation. The consumption results from the anticipation of having fun, fulfilling fantasies, or having pleasurable feelings. From this perspective, products are viewed not as objective entities but more than that, as subjective symbols that precipitate feelings and promise fun and possible realization of fantasies.


Question 9: what are the three stages of adopting a new product?
The three stages are:
Ø Awareness stage
Ø Trier stage
Ø Repeater stage


Question 10: what are the variables we should follow in the three stages?

The variables needed for each stage are:
Ø Awareness stage: free samples and coupons, trade shows and personal selling, advertising, and distribution.
Ø Trier stage: cents-off coupons, wide product distribution on retailer shelves and displays, and lower prices.
Ø Repeater stage: personal selling, advertising, price, distribution, and product satisfaction


Question 11: Identify three product related characteristics that influence consumers’ attitudes toward new product.
These three characteristics are:
Ø Relative advantage: it represents the degree to which consumers perceive a product innovation as being better than existing alternatives with respect to a specific attribute or benefit. It is a function of consumer perception and is not a matter of whether a product is actually better by objective standards.
Ø Compatibility: it is the degree to which an innovation is perceived to fit into a person’s way of doing things. A new product is more compatible to the extent that it matches consumers’ needs, personal values, beliefs, and past consumption practices.
Ø Complexity: refers to an innovation’s degree of perceives difficulty. The more difficult an innovation is to understand or use, the slower the rate of adoption.


Question 12: to understand the diffusion process, there five adopter categories. Identify them.
The five categories are:
Ø Innovators: they represent 13% of the population and are successful, sophisticated, take-charge people with high self esteem. They have abundant resources. They are considered leaders and are opened to new ideas and technologies. Innovators are very active consumers and it reflects cultivated tastes.
Ø Early adopters: they are opinion leaders
Ø Early majority: they represent 35% of the population
Ø Late majority: they represent 35 % of the population
Ø Laggards: they represent 15% of the population


Question 13: what is a brand?
A brand represents a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.


Question 14: explain the brand naming process.
The brand naming is a process that follows five important steps:
Step1: Specify objectives for the brand name
Ø Managers are concerned with selecting a name that will successfully position the brand in the minds of the target audience, provide an appropriate image for the brand, and distinguish it from competitive brands.

Step 2: Create Candidate Brand Name
ØBrand name candidates often are selected using creative thinking exercises and brainstorming sessions.

Step 3: Evaluate candidate names
ØThe names generated are evaluated using criteria such as relevance to the product category, favorability of associations conjured up by the name, and the over all appeal.
ØNames should be easily recognized and recalled.

Step 4: Choose a brand name
ØCriteria of steps 1 and Step 3 are used by managers to select a final name from the candidate field.
ØThe judgment is generally subjective.

Step 5: Register the trade mark
ØMost companies apply for the trade mark registration with only one name and others multiple ones (on average five names).
ØA survey indicated that three names are rejected for every registered name.


Question 15: what is the role of a brand?
Abrand has the role of giving the company a unique designation, or trademark, which identifies a company’s offering and distinguishes it from other product category entries. A good brand name evolves feelings of: trust, security, confidence, strength, durability, speed, status and many others.